


Honey It's Okay (You're Afraid Of Falling)

by 1Temmie_Official1



Series: ATLA Winter Femslash 2021 [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: ATLA Winter Femslash Week 2021, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Ty Lee (Avatar), F/F, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Lesbian Mai (Avatar), Love Confessions, Mai (Avatar)-Centric, Nonbinary Mai (Avatar), Sharing a Bed, Trans Azula (Avatar), she/they azula because fuck you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29154729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1Temmie_Official1/pseuds/1Temmie_Official1
Summary: ATLA Winter Femslash Week!Day 2:Prompt: Angst (with a happy ending)Mei never really had attachments before, they weren't allowed to.They didn't know if they were allowed to fall for Ty Lee.
Relationships: Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Series: ATLA Winter Femslash 2021 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097126
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Honey It's Okay (You're Afraid Of Falling)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Harbour's 'Float'

Mei wasn't always like this.

Mei didn't always have to walk the halls of their home so close to the walls they might have been a part of them. Mei didn't always think that they were undeserving, didn't decide to cut things loose first and deal with consequences later. They chose to hide instead of face the light because darkness was safer, secrets were better kept locked than shared.

They never formed attachments because that would make it all the harder to sever them.

It was one of the things that brought their thought process back to Azula. Azula was afraid of losing the things they already had, while Mei was afraid to even have it in the first place. Azula had been the Crown 'Prince', she had always gotten what she wanted. She never had to really struggle. Or that's what everyone thought.

A perk about being a wallflower, always being unnoticed, unwanted, and unseen, was that Mei saw everything. They saw how Azula was held to impossible expectations by both parents. They saw how Azula threw herself into training to be perfect, to be the best because anything less than perfection was seen as a failure. They saw how presenting so masculinely made Azula hate herself, but she did it anyway because the consequences were worse than death. They saw how Azula just wanted the praise, just wanted to be seen.

Mei could almost relate.

Azula's Uncle Iroh once told them that flowers needed different light levels to bloom, to flourish. Perhaps that was why Mei wasn't thriving. They never got enough light, always shrouded in darkness.

They were overdramatic, just like their father always said.

Ty Lee never said that.

Ty Lee was the sun to them, a bright burning ball of light that was so warm that it ached. That it almost felt wrong to stay too long in the sun.

That was why they hated the light.

Almost.

Kyoshi Island, it was quite far South but it never felt too cold. There was snow but it was gentle, nothing like Katara had told them the South Pole was like. It was usually warm. Like trading and farming and beautiful warriors, Kyoshi Island was famed for its summers.

Mei visited Kyoshi Island that summer to visit Ty Lee.

"Mei!" Was what greeted them every morning. Mei acted 'gloomy', acted bored and disinterested just to keep her from knowing. Just to make it feel better when they would have to let her go. "Goodnight, Mei." Was the last words she heard every night.

"Mei, uh, one of the girl's beds broke and I offered mine, so uh, can I share your bed? Just for tonight." Ty Lee fiddled with her hands. Mei was embarrassed with how quickly they answered.

"Sure." It was bordering on excitement. Fuck. They were falling fast and hard, all they wanted was to stay where they were before. Isolated but safe.

The bed felt much too small. Most nights it felt like vast space but it was like with every move they were breaking some unknown rule of personal space. The candle beside their bed flickered. "What are you reading?" Ty Lee asked, breaking the silence.

Mei flushed. "Oh. It's a book of letters between an Oshinama fighter and a Kyoshi warrior. They were, uh, in love." Their father had not been very tolerant of women who loved women or men who loved men, much less people who weren't the gender they were assigned at birth.

Ty Lee smiled. "Did you know that Kyoshi had a Fire Nation girlfriend?" The breath was stolen from Mei's lungs. Did this mean that Ty Lee... wasn't intolerant of women loving women? Would they accept Mei? "Can you read me some of it? Your voice is nice to listen to." Mei felt their face heat more.

"Oh, sure." They looked down at the page. " _I want you to feel like a Kyoshi Island summer night. I want you to feel the waterfalls that rush down to the lake we used to swim in, I want you to feel the moss between your toes and I want you to hear the trees echo your name. I want you to kiss me as we tumble in the bluebells fields as we get pollen all over our clothes. I want to be in love for just one more night. Sultry and sweet. You and me. Forever._ “ Mei read. Their heart beat quickly in their chest, a thumping erratic rhythm. Was this what dying felt like? This is how Mei wanted to go.

“Poetic.” Ty Lee whispered. It sounded like ‘I love you’. She sat up. “Would you write something like that for me one day?”

Mei blinked, stunned so much their mask fell. “Are... like, platonically?”

Ty Lee tilted her head. “If that’s what you want.” She paused. “You know, I like boys and girls.”

Mei’s heart, which had just been slowing down the slightest bit, picked up pace again. “Uh, that’s a problem.”

Ty Lee frowned, and if Mei wasn’t dying from the amount of adrenaline in their veins they would have sworn their heart broke. “You don’t like girls?”

“No, I do.” _Woah._ This was getting too close for comfort. They seemed to be drifting together, closer and closer. They felt like a wax bird flying impossibly higher towards the sun. They were going to fall and drown. But it felt so good, so warm and sweet, that they would drown over and over if just to feel the aching of loss. “The problem is that I’m not a girl. Or a boy.”

Their faces were so close they could touch, they could feel Ty Lee’s breath on their chin. Ty Lee’s brown eyes were filled with mystery and something else. Mei didn’t know what they looked like. “I can make that work.”

“I’m afraid to love you.” They confessed. Mei didn’t know where that came from. Their book was being gripped tightly in their hands, a lifeline to this reality. Was this real or was this fake, a dream they couldn’t escape until it was ripped away from them. “I don’t want to let you go.”

“Then you don’t have to.” With that, the space between them closed, the doubt in Mei’s mind erased with a single kiss. Actually everything was erased from Mei’s mind. Ty Lee’s lips were soft against her’s. It was messy and uncoordinated. It was supposed to be wrong. It was perfect. Ty Lee was perfect.

“I love you.” Mei whispered, a smile on their face.

“I love you.” Ty Lee promised. “And I’ll never let you go.”


End file.
